Bloke's Cookbook - Pittas stuffed with Piri-Piri chicken

This gem of a summer recipe is ideal bloke food. The essence of it is that it's make-your-own, like fajitas. It's very spicy so you need ice-cold beers. It has bread, it has barbecued meat. It's almost perfect. It's also staggeringly easy to make and very quick to do. This recipe will serve 6 hungry blokes.

Ingredients:

8 chicken breasts;
Piri-piri seasoning (see below);
4 steak tomatoes;
Mixed salad leaves, including rocket;
1 large pot plain yoghurt;
24 large pittas (white or brown);
Ground cumin;
Olive oil.

Equipment:

Large non-metallic mixing bowl;
Large wok;
Large Baking tray.

First, cut the chicken breasts in strips. Put them in your mixing bowl, add your piri-piri seasoning, mix together so that the chicken breasts are covered with the seasoning. If you're organised, you can do this several hours beforehand to allow the chicken to marinade and to give the food some real fire. Cover the bowl with clingfilm. If you're only reading this as you start to cut up the chicken, then your chicken will be inferior and your friends will hate you for ever. Organise yourself better next time.

Preheat your oven to about 180c. You'll be warming the pittas in this. Then heat the barbecue up to cooking temperature.

Now cut up the tomatoes. They need to be in small enough pieces to stuff inside the pitta bread with the chicken. I suggest you cut the tomato in half vertically, then cut each side in strips. Put the tomato bits in a serving bowl.

Next, the salady stuff. No need to go overboard on this but it adds a bit of colour, and the peppery rocket will set off the piri-piri. Wash it, dry it, put it in a serving bowl.

Prepare your cumin dip (see below), put it in a serving bowl.

Now onto the chicken. It should have marinated nicely over the last few hours (or few minutes if you were disorganised). Place the wok on the barbecue's griddle, add a hefty splash of olive oil and leave to heat up until the oil is smoking.

Once the oil is smoking, take the chicken and put it in the wok. Stand back for a minute and keep your eyes well clear of the acrid smoke. Now you can see why this dish is best cooked outside. This will cook in 10-15 minutes.

The wok has to be kept very hot. The chicken will burn onto the sides of the wok, and that's fine because you want that slightly crispy texture, but make sure that you move the chicken round in the wok every few minutes to ensure you don't end up eating scraps of charcoal.

Whilst the chicken is cooking, put the pittas on the baking tray in the oven. They'll need several minutes to warm through. When they're done, take some scissors and cut off the top 1/4 inch from one of the long sides. This will give you a sort of bready envelope into which you can stuff the chicken and accessories. Put the pittas in a serving bowl.

With practice you'll be able to tell when the chicken is done. The worst of the smoke will clear, the oil will have cooked off and the strips of chicken will start to glisten. The thinner you cut the strips, the faster it'll cook.

When it's cooked, take the wok off the barbeque and put the chicken in a serving bowl.

To eat, take an opened pitta, stuff with chunks of spicy chicken, some pieces of tomato, some salady stuff and pour on a teaspoon or two of cumin dip. Enjoy on a scorching summer day with beer in your back garden. Bliss.


Cumin Dip

This easy-to-make dip is absolutely brilliant for taking the edge off spicy food whilst enhancing the flavour. Pour your plain yoghurt into a bowl. Add a couple of spoons of ground cumin to the yoghurt, then stir vigorously until it's all mixed in.


Piri-Piri:

Piri-Piri is a ferociously hot chilli from western Africa, which was imported there by the Portugese. It's what gives this recipe its bite.

I buy powdered piri-piri from Fox's Spices, a spice company who don't have a website (although they used to) but whose range of spices really is first class. For this recipe, I'd take 2 heaped teaspoons of the seasoning, mix in a bowl with a few tablespoons of olive oil, and then pour onto the chicken, mix up, and leave to marinade for a couple of hours.
If you want to make your own, there are plenty of recipes on the internet. Basically, you need lots of chillies, some garlic, salt, some lemon juice and some paprika. Grind to a paste, add some olive oil, and there you have it.



Drink with: Ice cold beer. Cobra is probably your best bet although whatever you drink, make sure it has been in the freezer for half an hour.

Ease of cooking and preparation: 5/5 - A doddle.

Mess factor: 4/5 - The wok which had the piri-piri chicken in it will need to soak to get off all the burned-on bits. Beyond that, it's really not too bad.

Leftover value: 4/5 - Pretty good. Cold bits of spicy chicken make excellent sandwiches the next day - use the cumin dip as a spread instead of butter. Any leftover pittas will have to go out for the birds, though, since their shelf life is shorter than a boy band's.